James Hibberd

That was the question one blog reader emailed me Monday. While The CW announced a detailed schedule of all its season premieres for fall 2006 at its TCA executive session, CBS gave no indication when the new season would start for its new and returning series over the weekend.

I tracked down a senior CBS Corp. executive who was working The CW press tour day to ask him what was up. He told me CBS wouldn’t be making a premiere schedule announcement for a couple weeks, since it was still unclear when everything would debut.

CBS isn’t being coy. With two summer elimination reality series – “Big Brother: All Stars” and “Rock Star: Supernova”—the network has some flexibility since it can extend or contract the two series depending on their continued popularity. Once both shows have played out for another week or so, CBS can gauge when to start its new shows. So if “Big Brother” turns out to be a ratings big bust, expect to see the new season of “CSI,” “Old Christine” and “Jericho” sooner rather than later.